Roughly 120 Virginians gathered in downtown Richmond to lobby for LGBTQ rights today. Among those who lobbied where couples seeking marriage rights, individuals seeking workplace equality and friends and family showing support. The event is organized annually by Equality Virginia to help support bills that promote LGBTQ equality, and to inform legislators about issues that matter to VA’s LGBTQ population.

Tom Osborne of Alexandria joined in holy union with his partner almost 41 years ago. “I’m here for marriage equality,” said Osborne, who owns an antique store with his spouse. “When you get to be our age, you start to worry about health care, life decisions and inheritance issues.”

Osborne went on to speak about the rights of the next of kin in the case of serious medical conditions. He explained that his next of kin is his stepbrother – who lives in California and with whom he rarely speaks – would be contacted to make a serious medical decision for him rather than his spouse of 40 years. “When you have problems,” said Osborne, “that’s when [the legislation] matters.”

Others lobbied for adoption rights. “I have a wife and a kid, but I’m the only legal parent,” said Latana De’zia-Early of Winchester. De’zia-Early was here lobbying with friend Victoria Kidd, who is involved in the current ACLU class action case challenging the same-sex marriage ban. “I’m also married with a child, but I can’t legally adopt her,” said Kidd, who married her wife in D.C. in 2011. “It’s nonsensical that my wife can be married in D.C. and be a single mom when she crosses the border into Virginia.”

Keith Masterson and Gabriel Hawks of Chester, who have been together for three years, spoke to legislators about freedom to marry. “We had to go to D.C. to get married, and we shouldn’t have had to do that,” said Masterson. “Virginia needs to be brought up to speed and get with the times,” said Masterson

“I would appreciate the fact that if we live in the state of Virginia, and we were allowed to get married there, that allows me to go into the hospital there and say ‘hey, this is my husband, and then whatever comes after that… I don’t want to feel like a second class citizen when I feel like I should have first class citizen rights,” said Hawks. “And I think anybody that’s in [my] position wants the exact same thing.”

Hawks also lobbied against workplace discrimination, something he says he’s experienced in the past. “I worked for a very popular coffee company and at one point I was the only black person there,” said Hawks, who believes he was fired for being gay and black. “It speaks to the mindset that some people need to realize that they live in the 21st century and understand that you can’t really have those ideas and spout them or practice them in the workplace. That’s your idea, that’s your opinion; you’re allowed to have it. There’s a time and a place for that, and the workplace isn’t that.”

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